potatomato.blog: Lucques Restaurant (Melrose Ave.)

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Apr 02

Lucques Restaurant (Melrose Ave.)

Food 10: W. Hollywood

Freda had her spectacular birthday dinner at Ortolan. I had mine at Lucques with Jon. We've alway wanted to try Lucques but never get around to. I love chef/owner Suzanne Goin's other establishments A.O.C. and Hungry Cat very much. Los Angeles Magazine called Lucques the no.1 restaurant in LA recently, so we had high expectation.

It was a Tuesday night and the restaurant was full. Love the butter soaked almonds (easier for the salt to stick?) and olive. All the dishes on the menu sound interesting so it was quite difficult to choose.

We share the appetizer: colorado lamb carpaccio with fried potatoes, romesco and green garlic aioli . I've had beef and fish carpaccio before but never lamb. Very good! The raw lamb meat is easy to chew and not musky at all. Nice Parsley.

Jon got the Grilled liberty duck breast with black rice, blood orange and ginger-mint chutney. The technique was very good, the duck was cooked perfectly. Though Jon also found the astringentness of the blood oranges and spices weren't adequetely offset by the black rice. He felt something like potatos or parsnips might have worked better. I thought the dish taste Thai.

I got the Braised beef short ribs with sautéed greens, cippolinis and horseradish cream. The dish is like something you might find in a quality restaurant in central Europe, it's more traditional than haute-cuisine wild juxtapositions. The execution was nonetheless very good. We like it better than the duck. The meat was juicy, tender and came off the bone easily.

Both of us were too full to order any cake type of dessert. We should have gotten a salad for the appetizer so it's less meat heavy. Also their gelato cost $8 which I found to be too much, so we ended the night with Scoop's $2 gelato. ^^;;. I enjoyed the dinner a lot but I didn't think it was the best I've ever had. I want to go back to try their $35 prix-fixe 3 courses dinner on Sunday night.

Lucques
8474 Melrose Ave, West Hollywood, CA 90069
Phone: (323) 655-6277

Joan | April 2, 2008 10:23 AM

Comments:

Ah so it's $40 now, thanks for the info Tien. Yes it's still a good deal!

I'm think Lucques is regard as "Franco-Mediterranean" cuisine. The short-rib is very central European though, so it's kind of all over the place.

Joan | April 4, 2008 12:07 PM

That short rib looks awesome! It looks so succulent with that dollop of horseradish cream... Can't wait to see your Sunday Supper pics!

sneakermonkey | April 4, 2008 03:29 AM

Oh I think I would want to be in Lucques rather than Ortolan. More exotic, more meat, more messy sauces(=yummy)...^^;;;; Is this fusion cuisine?

seat | April 3, 2008 08:36 PM

I think Lucques' Sunday Supper is $40 now :( But, still one of the best deals in town! I have been a few times, and never felt hungry, which is how I usually feel after these prix fixe dinners.